George Santayana had irrational faith in reason - I have irrational faith in TV.

Friday, October 19, 2012

The Good Wife 4.3: "Template Based Link Analysis Algorithm"

Another sassy, technologically hip episode 4.3 of The Good Wife last Sunday, featuring Dominic Chianese, of Sopranos Uncle Junior fame, as an elderly hard-of-hearing judge trying a high-powered case at the cutting edge of social media and how they can operate in our society.

It was a good night for Chianese, with simultaneous appearances in The Good Wife and Boardwalk Empire, both on at 9pm Eastern (see my review of Boardwalk Empire). Chianese was especially excellent as the judge on The Good Wife, turning out to be totally on top of the high-tech courtroom action, signalling his command with a comment about "a template based link analysis algorithm".

The case involves manipulating Google searches to bury adversaries in the search results. Like all the episode on The Good Wife this year, last Sunday's was ripped from the headlines, to borrow a phrase usually used for Law and Order. With Presidential election day just a few weeks from now, last Spring's Republican primary, and the possible ascendency of Rick Santorum in that process, seems long ago. But when Santorum looked to be riding high, a manipulation of Google to give an unpleasant result in searches on his name - a piece of clever, nasty work which actually had been done a few years ago - achieved more than a little attention in some places.

On The Good Wife, Will gets a lesson in what can be done to anyone with a sufficiently technologically sophisticated adversary. Will's not only buys off his clients, but rigs Google so that searches on Will's name bring up a "disbarred lawyer" tag. Not likely to help the firm in its quest to become financially solvent.

Fortunately, Alicia has better results in her personal affairs. Not only does no one have evidence of her and Will's affair, but when an intern claims she slept with Peter, Kalinda gets her to unwittingly reveal that she was lying. This leads to a great next-to-last scene in which Alicia kisses Peter (the last scene was Will searching on his name).

But speaking of reunions, Kalinda and her husband's is wearing thin already. I'd much rather see Kalinda working cases, than going through lame kinky scenes with the husband.

Hey, if you like Dominic Chianese, he's an lengthy video interview I did with him several years ago, about his work on The Sopranos:

About Me

Paul Levinson, PhD, is Professor of Communication &
Media Studies at Fordham University in New York City.His 8 nonfiction books, including The Soft Edge (1997),
Digital McLuhan (1999), Realspace (2003), Cellphone (2004), and New New Media (2009, 2nd edition 2012), have been the
subject of major articles in the New York Times, Wired, the Christian Science
Monitor, and have been translated into 12 languages. His science fiction novels include The Silk Code (1999, ebook 2012), Borrowed Tides (2001), TheConsciousness Plague (2002, 2013), The Pixel Eye (2003), The Plot To SaveSocrates (2006, ebook 2012), and Unburning Alexandria (2013).His short stories
have been nominated for Nebula, Hugo, Edgar, and Sturgeon Awards.Paul Levinson appears on "The
O'Reilly Factor" (Fox News), "The CBS Evening News,"“NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” (PBS),“Nightline” (ABC), NPR, and numerous
national and international TV and radio programs. His 1972 album, Twice Upon a Rhyme, was re-issued in 2009 (CD) and 2010 (remastered vinyl). He reviews the best of
television in his InfiniteRegress.tv blog, and was listed in The Chronicle of
Higher Education’s “Top 10 Academic Twitterers” in 2009.

e-mail received from a reader:Dear Paul, I just dreamed of airships flying between raindrops. I just returned from 2042 CE, where I sold my hardcover copy of The Plot to Save Socrates for seventy million Neo-Euros, because it had your response to this e-mail from way back in 2007 scotch-taped onto the inside of the cover. A Paul Levinson collector paid top Neo-Euro, because of the authentic archaic e-mail printout from you. It turns out that not many of your e-mails from before your tenure as CEO of HBO/Cinemax and terms as United Nations Secretary General will survive that far into the future. So, please respond to this e-mail, to help found my great-grandchildren's fortune. My Will will stipulate that they must share with your great grandchidren. Thanks! Tom